When it was built
No reliable date is published. The early 1820s fit the name and the history, but that is a reasonable inference, not a record.
Header Photo - at Richter Fort Osu, Accra
Ghana-Net.com · Central Region · Cape Coast
A British ruin on one of Cape Coast's hills, protected as part of a World Heritage listing — and so poorly recorded that Ghana's own heritage authority says there is no documentation for it. This page sets out what can honestly be said, and what cannot.
Every fort on the Ghanaian coast has at least a basic record: who built it, when, and why. Fort McCarthy barely has that. The Ghana Museums and Monuments Board, which is responsible for it, describes it in one line: it is in ruin, with no documentation available.
That is remarkable for a structure in Cape Coast, a town whose every other fort — the castle, Fort William, Fort Victoria — is photographed, published and toured. It is also a fair summary of how Ghana treats its smaller monuments.
Why we publish it anyway. A monument nobody documents is a monument nobody will miss when it disappears. If you have photographs, plans or family history connected with Fort McCarthy, send them to us — we will publish what we can verify, with credit.
The fort is almost certainly named after Sir Charles MacCarthy, the British governor who ran the West African settlements from Sierra Leone in the early 1820s.
MacCarthy was the governor who took on the Asante. In January 1824 he led a force inland against them and was defeated and killed at Nsamankow. It was one of the worst British defeats in West Africa, and it opened decades of war between Britain and the Asante kingdom.
A fort in Cape Coast bearing his name fits the period: the early 1820s, when the British were strengthening the town against an Asante attack they had every reason to expect. The exact year of construction is not reliably recorded, and this page will not invent one.
The early forts of Cape Coast faced the sea and each other: Swedes, Danes, Dutch and English competing for the same beach. By the nineteenth century the threat came from the other direction — inland.
The Asante had reached the coast more than once in the early 1800s. For the British in Cape Coast Castle, the danger was an army coming over the hills behind the town. The answer was a ring of small defensive posts on those hills, watching the landward approaches. Fort Victoria, the tower at Fort William and Fort McCarthy belong to that story, not to the story of the Atlantic trade.
The Asante side of these wars is told on our pages on Kumasi Fort and Nana Yaa Asantewaa. The men who governed and fought on this coast are gathered in Names of Past and Present.
No reliable date is published. The early 1820s fit the name and the history, but that is a reasonable inference, not a record.
It is usually placed on one of the hills behind the castle, often given as Connor's Hill. Ask locally; the ruin is not signposted.
Presumably a small defensive post or signal station, like its neighbours. When it went out of use is not documented.
The ruin is in town, on a hill inland of the castle. There are no signs. Ask locally, and be prepared for people not to know the name.
A ruin, unrestored and unexplained. No staff, no fee, no panels. Wear proper shoes and do not climb on the walls.
Cape Coast Castle, Fort William, Fort Victoria and Fort Royal at Amanful.
Cape Coast or Elmina. Options on ghanahotels.biz; flights on ghanaflights.info.
More on the town: Cape Coast. Ghana Museums and Monuments Board: +233 302 221633 or +233 302 221635.
No tour includes Fort McCarthy. The Cape Coast tours below bring you to the castle; the hill forts you do on foot afterwards.
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The seat of British administration and the largest slave-holding dungeons on the coast.
The Danish fort on the hill above the castle, bought and renamed by the English, then abandoned.
All of them, in order: Forts and Castles of Ghana.
There is nothing to tour at Fort McCarthy, and little to read about it anywhere — including from the institution responsible for it. That is the point of this page. A protected monument in one of Ghana's most visited towns should not be a blank.
Verified: 26 September 2026. The fort's ruined state and the absence of documentation are as stated by the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board. The connection to Sir Charles MacCarthy, killed at Nsamankow in January 1824, is given as highly likely rather than certain. Construction date and precise location are not reliably recorded and are not invented here. Corrections and documents welcome and will be published in full.